Email Marketing - Own server Vs Third Party

Hey, I was investigating this myself a while ago. There is actually a lot of useful information about this on WF already. I suggest you search the forum for more info, but here are some of the posts I found interesting:

They all say self-hosted email is the devil. Is it really?
Best Hosted Autoresponder?
Use an Email Service? or Run Your Own Bulk Email Software?
Email List / Autoresponder

PS. Sorry, I cant link to them as I don't have enough posts but I am sure you will find them on your own.

If you make you own then I see the purpose but why create more stress in your life. I really like Prosperitycentral it is more than just an auto responder.

I tried to use instantcustomer.com but last I checked I was closed to new customers.

Thanks for the links guys I'll check them out.

Aweber will probably be the most common suggestion. But do whatever the hell you want!

It's up to you. After all being unique is literally the quickest way to success.

I see several advantages of a great 3rd party provider:

1) Deliverability - they have large staffs devoted to making sure your mail goes through.

2) You avoid any spam complaints coming back directly to you company - or your ISP blocking you.

3) Less stress - let others do 'the dirty work' while you enjoy the fruits of your labor.

4) Simplicity - your own hosting is complex.

Getting your emails delivered, figuring out why they don't, and fixing it... is someone else's problem.

Of course, it's possible they still don't care and won't fix it. But at least they might do something, since at the very least they know how.

Thanks all, I've used a lot of third party systems but the interest has come from wanting some custom auto responder and list management tools designed. That then led to the current investigation of whether it's feasible to actually design/manage our own custom system so we have ultimate control over everything.

Get your own vps and dedicated with Interspire and correct spf,dkim,rdns etc setup and you are ready to go (only if your quantity is bulk)

If you only have a small list, it wouldn't be wise to do this with self-hosted solutions. I'd advise you go for this only your list is up to 50,000 and such

Really just based upon your volume, if your volume is high enough some companies may force you to purchase your own server.

Shaun, I believe, is basically correct. The only thing to really consider is your initial investment in the autoresponder self hosted software and the cost of using a service like SMTP.com. The beauty of the latter is that you only pay for the amount of email service you use.

One of the reasons I use a larger email service provider is that they dialogue with companies/organizations like spam filters to ensure deliverability. One less big headache for me, assuming I'm doing the right thing (spamwise) to begin with.

If you are just building a list...then aweber will work. But when you start getting to 5-10K a week or more, you need a third party. A good bulk emailing service is worth their weight in gold!!! Here is why, as your needs get bigger or if you want to buy a list and run a large campaign you need to not burn out your ip address. Large emailing services send out large amounts of email over several servers and several ip addresses. One horse ip addresses get blacklisted as spam...sometimes just from sending to much email at once. If you have a large email need, email me at 360 Marketing Pros at gmail. No set prices...we look at what you want to do...and work with your budget, needs.

i prefer a third party because it can create a huge list and deliver it without any problem

I like the idea of having far more control. We recently wanted to create some more graphical ways of organising follow up sequences in aweber but after contacting them unfortunately their API wouldnt give us enough control.

The technical side is not an issue, what IS an issue like with anything is we don't know half the pitfalls or things to watch out for when delivering emails which of course comes with experience.

At the moment the ideal would be we create the software and someone else does the delivering.

I would say go with your own hosted email solution for the following reason

1. You own your data and can be sure it willl never be compromised.
2. You have control over your software
3. You can import data without reverification
4. You can backup your data just like you can backup other sites
5. Your account will never be banned for just few complaints here and there


So it is much better too have your own email server than having third party. Just make sure your email server is configured with following

Multiple IP addresses that can be rotated
SPF
domain Key
RDNS
Feedback loop

I know it sounds much technical but any email server admin with right kind of knowledge should be able to configure all these things same day.

In my opinion, I think that a great purchase you can make in order to support the "Own server" option would have to be Send Blaster Pro. Send Blaster Pro is my number one secret weapon when it comes down to email marketing because there is no limit on the amount of emails you send to.

Also, if you have a purchased list of subscribers, you can go on ahead and paste those suckers in there and bam! You got yourself a ton of cash waiting to be withdrawn. But please... if you plan on purchasing a list, make sure you offer them FREE stuff at first and treat them like human being not just numbers.

If you follow these rules you will find that your reward for being genuine will pay off in the end. I hope this helps

When I started I had my own server, but have been using third party now and think it's better for you since they do the work for you to get you a better delivery rate.

If it was for someone new to the biz I'd suggest using something that works right now and has good deliverability so you have something you can depend on? You need your emails to get delivered so you can generate income.
Then when you're making money and your list size grows and the cost starts to grow you can take a look at the options including creating your own and make a better decision.
For someone already knee deep in and making money now, do what you want if you can maintain the same level of deliverability for the same cost or less.

I have a dedicated server and have used Interspire with SMTP with a client's 50K list. Interspire techs only help on Interspire and SMTP works only on SMTP . . they don't really coordinate help. It was a rather painful process to set up.

The email took 2 days to process and kept on stopping. Had to babysit the entire time so decided to try Constant Contact.

My first mailing in 2 years had a higher then normal bounce rate and Constant Contact only wants a pristine list imported. They want to pull a little subsection of the list that is newer signups and basicly abandon about 40K names OR keep those names with SMTP until I have mailed to the old list a few times. If I move to them and don't meet their bounce % limit, my client's list will be kicked out.

However, did learn from Constant Contact that before you blast a lot of emails to Yahoo, Gmail, etc . . . they claim you need to prior approve the email address that you will send from. Constant Contact does this. Aweber proabably does this. I don't believe SMTP did.

Also, if you mail several times a month . . . Constant Contact is cheaper because they charge by the email accounts per month. SMTP charges by mails sent.

Hope this helps someone.